Dead pixels instead of dead trees

I love books, I love browsing stacks, I love libraries, I love Powell’s in Portland, I like collecting books, I always have a stack nearby to read, I love looking through picture books, and I love books even though I didn’t really become much of a reader until the end of my college years (I never read for fun until then). Plunging into the Internet fed my book addiction further, as I had to read dozens of computer classics to get up to speed and stay ahead of the curve. Every computer desk I’ve had until recently was flanked by bookshelves loaded with titles.

Earlier this year, I remember hearing Cory Doctorow give a talk about how ebooks were going to rule the world and folks would abandon the printed page for the laptop screen. I thought it was a good talk, but I felt the thesis was a bit ahead of its time. There’s really no comparison between curling up with a book and a blanket in front of a fireplace, versus trying to read thousands of words on a screen.

Last weekend I was doing some house cleaning and I kept finding stacks of books. A stack next to the reading chairs. A stack on the coffee table. A stack beside my bed. All these stacks contained books I bought in 2004, but never read. Some, I got halfway through, but even more I got maybe ten pages in. A few I never even cracked open.

I’m going to take a holiday trip soon to a fairly remote location where there’s not much to do besides read. I’m going to sit and read the only book I’ve wanted to read this year, and I have a feeling it might just be one of the last dead tree books I read for a long time.

As much as I didn’t agree with Cory back during his E-tech talk, I’m finally realizing it’s coming true in my own life. I read thousands of words everyday on my monitors and I rarely take time to read anything on the printed page, and there’s no sign of reversal on that trend. The scariest thing for the bookfan inside me is that I don’t think it’s bad thing, either.